Happy 31st Birthday to Me (May 28th)!

End of Year 4K Program

I realized I forgot to post a few pictures from Ethan's end of year preschool program. We attended his 4K Spring Choir Program the same Friday morning that we left to travel to VA for our trip. But Ethan did very well in his choir program, and then we got to go back to his classroom and see all of his work from this year. There was even a life-sized Ethan on the bathroom door in the classroom that he made of himself! Scott wasn't able to come since he works so far away now, but me, Mama Bailey, Mama Brisken, and Papa Brisken got to share in the fun! We are so proud of Ethan and all he's learned this year! Mrs. Hodge taught him a lot and we believe he is very well prepared for kindergarten this fall! (But at least there are still a few months left before he starts!!! I still need time to prepare myself for him starting "real" school.) :-( We drove by his new elementary school the other night, and he was most interested in which playground he would be playing on! :-)

Visiting Family in VA

The boys and I got to come up to VA with my Mom this weekend to see my Dad, Stacy, Zach, Wendy, Megan, and Mike. Scott had to stay back home in SC and work, so we are missing him a lot. But we're having a nice time enjoying being together! We went to the playground earlier today and had a backyard campfire tonight. Enjoy the pictures!

Happy Mother's Day

I had a very special Mother's Day today . . . Not only was I showered with love from my boys, and given beautiful gifts, but Ethan decided he wanted to go down front at church this morning and tell our pastor about his decision to accept Jesus into his heart. I am so proud of him! Ethan made this decision last September, but we did not want to push him to making it public until he was ready. Our church has children's church most Sundays, but on some Sundays we worship all together as a family. On those Sundays, we would normally ask Ethan if he wanted to tell the pastor about his decision, and up until yesterday he would say no or not yet etc. . . But yesterday when we asked him, he just got a huge smile on his face and said yes he wanted to! We went over things and made sure he still remembered what his decision meant, and he did. So, at church this morning he could hardly wait to go down front at the invitation time. Now, we will begin talking with him more about baptism.

Ethan gave me a beautiful flower that he made me at preschool. On each of the petals, it had the following phrases he answered:

I like to help my Mommy clean up.
I like it when my Mommy plays with me.
My Mommy looks pretty everyday.
My Mommy likes to work so we can get toys.
I know my Mommy loves me when she hugs me.
My Mommy cooks french fries and chicken the best.
My favorite place to go with my Mommy is Toys R' Us.
My Mommy is 13 years old.

Caleb gave me the pretty potted flower in the top picture, as well as this finger painted picture of flowers he made at preschool. It says, "Flowers look up to the sun. Children look up to their Mothers. Happy Mother's Day."

I love being Mommy to these two gifts God blessed me with!

Happy Birthday Mama Brisken!

We celebrated Mama Brisken's birthday this past week with a nice dinner at Outback Steakhouse and a delicious cake from Costco! We love you very much and hope you enjoyed your special day, Mama!

Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggety Dog

Zoo and Other Things

(**To see the pictures above bigger, just click inside the box in the top of the picture and you should be able to see them bigger I think**)

I realize I haven't blogged in at least a week or more . . . each time I sit down to do it, something else takes up my time! But I thought I'd go ahead a do a quick update tonight before another week starts!

Last weekend, we went to the Greenville Zoo with both sets of grandparents. It is a smaller zoo, but just the right size for a 5 year old and 2 year old to walk through and it doesn't take the whole day. We got yearly passes so we can go back again since it's only 20 minutes from us, and the passes are also good at participating zoos, including Atlanta and Columbia so I'm sure they'll get their use through the year. I had some better pictures than the ones above from the zoo that I had copied from my mom's camera, but I'll have to put them on another time because . . .

Milk got spilled on my laptop computer earlier this week, which had those other pictures on there. Unfortunately, the keyboard no longer worked even though we dried it out as soon as it happened. The neat thing is that I am now typing on my new laptop. It wasn't something we neccessarily wanted to have to spend money on right now, but there was a sale on a laptop at Best Buy that fit my needs for hard drive space and whatever else I need (Scott told me this was a good one! :-) And so here I am on the new laptop! I actually really like this one a lot better than my old one. At least I got a good 2 1/2 years use out of my former one. It's amazing a spill didn't happen sooner. Needless to say, there are new drink rules for around the laptop now! We considered trying to make it with just one computer for the time being, but that wouldn't work too well, since I often work from home, and while I'm working on the laptop, Scott is often working on the desktop at the same time.

Scott is still enjoying his new job at BMC West. He seems to really like it there, and although it is an hour commute each way, he says it's actually better than his former 30 - 40 minute commute south. The highway going north is better equipped with more lanes to handle more traffic, so it is a straight drive without all the stopping and starting that there was going south to his old job. I think he just uses the time to decompress, listen to music, listen to podcasts, etc. . . I'm happy that he's happy. We never heard back officially from the other education job, but it seems that the job he is in is meant to be at this time. We are so thankful.


Well, that's enough of a long update for now. Better go get to bed!